October news post #2 (Patreon)

Alright, it's about time we cover some new stuff going on generally behind the scenes and also expectations to roughly guess for update 0.16!

Hope you all are making it through October just fine, safe but enjoying the change of scenery outside. ^^ We have a lot to discuss, so without taking up too much time. Lets jump into it.

>>News post #1<<

Update 0.16 content updates!

-Episode 2 added.

This is still of course expected for Nov 4th, we're a little behind on writing right now for it. But expected to see more behind the scenes on writing with episode 2 here later this week.

-Music added to Episode 2.

Enough said, we have 13 tracks. Some of which were heard in Episode 1 already, so we'll still hear how things sound going into Episode 2.

-3+ cg scenes added.

Big surprise for you all on this! We have 3 cg scenes already done and the 4th one in the works is about half way finished. That's 3 cg scenes for episode 1 and the 4th one will be for episode 2.

We're sorry that episode 2 won't have all of it's cg art upon release.. >.< We do expect to have everything caught up in time for episode 3's release in December. That way when a new episode releases, it'll no longer have missing art.

Thanks to our kickstarter launch on Oct 5th, we're at 119% funded currently. If we stay at 100% by the time it comes to an end on Nov 4th. We'll begin to make use of those funds towards cg art to help push this further.

-Bridget redesign sprite added.

Her sprite is coming along nicely, it's nearly done by now. I'd expect to show off a full preview of how her outfits look and her expression sheet sometime this weekend.

I must warn everyone that given her change in personality, we'll be seeing a different style of Bridget than before. So some visuals that fit closer to how Bridget looked before might not transfer over 1:1 rate. We've listened to the poll feedback and tried to consider much of that into how she'll turn out as well.

We hope fans of Bridget will still be happy with how she comes across in the game. (Not expected to be in Episode 2)

-New sprite expressions added.

These are still in the works, it's possible we won't see the new expressions for sprites until episode 3. We have a good little bit of work to go on these to ensure we do it right to capture the fitting feeling of each character just perfect.

Right now we have about 6 characters 90% done, with 8-9 in the major works still. So please expect Episode 3 to possibly display these.

Much of these are using new mouth/eye/eyebrow pieces that Lisadikaprio is handling while focusing on Bridget's sprite redesign.

-Splash art screen for Episodes begin added. (gui)

This will be seen for Episode 1 & 2 half way finished. The splash art screens are done, but we're missing chibi art that will be featured on these episode screens to match with the episodes.

So Episode 1's chibi art for example the idea is to display the scene of Brandon, Erika and Miki in the middle of their study session together. Where Miki's causing some issues for Erika, as Brandon is taking it all in.

We didn't have the funds to cover the chibi art itself this month and with our push on cg art mainly, we didn't want to split the focus.

We'll see the chibi art when Episode 3 comes out, I can't say yet if all episodes 1-3 will have their splash art show the chibi art or if it'll only be some screens right now. We'll be carefully watching it with our budget and not cutting into cg funding with this.

New features possibly coming with update 0.16

So I'll mention it lightly, behind the scenes I've decided to have someone else take over as our engine/programmer for this update.

I know it's not the best of times considering we have 13-14 days before this updates release. But simply put, I was hoping to hold off until December before doing this. But I'm finding that I just can't juggle writing, management and engine work for MA.

If things were to continue forward with me trying to do those things into 2021, I'd have to simply delay new game updates and I didn't want to do that.. By delay. I mean instead of new game updates once a month, it would've been possibly once every two months and that just won't do.

Not only to you supporters/fans out there, but also to keep our projected finish date of early 2022 in check.

So what are you saying? Who's the new engine/programmer?

I'd like to hold off on mentioning exactly who is taking over as our new engine/programmer, but I'd like to also ensure everyone that they're someone that I trust to handle it.

They might even mention something on their own social feeds about it before I mention it publicly.

The main thing to mention with this is that first off the game is being transferred to Ren'py!

Engine transfer to Ren'py?! What about Tyrano?

Tyranobuilder while useful and nice in it's own ways, Ren'py has always popped up as something that people have asked us. "Have you considered a Ren'py version of the game?" "Can we see the game in Ren'py for mod support?"

Well, so a few things.. Tyrano's biggest downfall in my eyes is that there's a lot of minor issues with simple systems that aren't supported out the box for it. Along with that is their fancy export tool which breaks upon reaching 800MB+ with a game project, not so good for bigger projects and while we did fix up our file size issues months ago.

We have plans to add a opening video to the game, more music and just general stuff that'll increase the file size. We're not talking 5GB+ to play MA in the near future, we're still going to try keeping the finished game to around 1GB give or take. (Kind of hard to guess)

Either way, short story is that tyrano was slowly starting to show it's issues even still. But with having someone else take over as engine/programmer, more commonly than not. They know Ren'py rather than Cloud Novel, Tyrano, etc. So it felt like a perfect time as we're also focusing on the episode format for the game where it fixes up the early content of the game on writing, visuals and adds new cg art.

So what features can we see in update 0.16 for the swap to Ren'py?

10-15 save slots for starters, cg/music gallery added, etc. Among supposedly mod support? (fans have mentioned it's easier to come up with unofficial patches or mods for the game in Ren'py) So we could see some unofficial patch/mod support for MA soon leading into 2021.

What will happen to the existing content seen in the game? I mean beyond the recent episode 1 or 2, etc?

Regarding the existing content in the game as of right now with update 0.15, there's episode 1, then it jumps to "day 2" playing out until day 19, before jumping into route part 1's.

We think it would be best to offer everyone update 0.14 as a "Here's what we have done for the game, but it's in the middle of being transferred over to Ren'py." demo. A pretty hefty amount of content demo that is.

But simply put, we don't want to just up and have update 0.16 release with Ren'py and only offer Episodes 1 & 2 with nothing else. I'm sure many of you have played through the other existing amount of content for the game, but it shouldn't go anywhere while we're in the middle of not only adding new episodes, but transferring content over to Ren'py.

To keep it simple... Nov 4th, we'll put update 0.14 in our guide post and downloads area as a showcase of how the game looked with days 1-19+ and then update 0.15 open for public (Ren'py version, featuring episode 1) & update 0.16 exclusively for supporters (Ren'py version, featuring episodes 1 & 2)

I feel like you guys have no idea what your doing behind the scenes... Why these dramatic changes?

I know with the format change of days becoming episodes, improvements to the writing and added existing content, etc. Along with now a engine transfer from tyrano to Ren'py it might seem like we're running around like chickens with our head loped off.

We're looking far ahead into the future of MA's roadmap and making the major final adjustments needed to really push forward and purely focus on seeing the game become more polished towards it's finish line throughout 2021.

With having a dedicated engine/programmer to pick up the slack, that leaves me with juggling writing and management of the team.

Which means I no longer have to put time aside each month to work on anything engine related. So the hope with that is that I'll be able to put more time into writing not only the latest new content to be expected, but also get ahead on content that we're releasing so that we can hopefully see the expected "Finished by early 2022" become "Finished by late 2021"

What if I don't trust the team as much right now?

We'd hope that we're still trustworthy and being completely open with everyone along the way when working on MA. It's one thing that we feel is right, is to be honest and open with our supporters/fans.

After all it's your choice to support us and we're thankful when you do, but if for some reason you feel unsure of how things are heading forward. We'd hate to see you go, but do take a month or two off from supporting us and ensure that what we're supplying and doing each month as we push forward is worth your support.

Again we wouldn't want that, but we'd also understand as well. Overall 2020 has been a wild, crazy year for everyone involved and just seeing the continued support through it all when people are going through struggles in general. It's very much respected by us at Messy Studios, shocking even in a good way.

We have much in store for everyone as we wrap up 2020 with our push on CG art already being seen lightly, hopefully the writing quality and game quality overall feels like a step forward rather than a step backwards. Among everything else we're working on together for the project.

Alright, going back to Ren'py as the engine... What improvements aside from what you mentioned is there?

So our roadmap had music/cg gallery listed as a feature to be seen in December's update. This was because of what I could handle personally on my own with engine work vs writing and general management of the team.

We're going to see this sooner now, same with 10-15 save slots. Which wasn't planned to be seen until January 2021. So while they're minor things, they'll be added sooner than we expected before.

Same goes for some new gui assets being used and some programming to be seen, aka diaper accident tracker & minigame tied in with it.

I can't say for sure yet, but I'd guess that it'll run better than tyrano could. I'm sure some of you had issues with MA crashing or freezing maybe? Or just general lack of support for Mac os?

Well maybe not with this next update in November, but we'd like to very soon offer Windows, Mac, Mobile and possibly Browser support for MA. First would be Windows & Mac by default, ensuring we don't have any issues. Then we'll look to roll out Mobile support and make sure that is running alright without issues, etc.

I'd assume for Linux users Ren'py is more friendly for you all, so hopefully this will be a godsend as well.

Overall, the swap to Ren'py should offer a little of something to everyone to be worth it. Personally.. I myself would love to see unofficial mods/patches made by dedicated fans, maybe you were a fan of NTR but we're not able to support that officially? Enough said, maybe you want a mod that swaps out Nova's sprite with her original old sprite? (Might require contacting me to gain access to some older assets) But it'd be interesting to see just some stuff being done by fans.

We'd try our best with advertising your unofficial mods/patches as well, but do keep in mind there is some terms that we'll have to turn a blind eye on some mods/patches made.

~Conclusion~

To end things, the big exciting thing is the mention of ren'py I think. <.< Work has already begun on getting the gui and episode 1 transferred from tyrano to Ren'py. Not to push our new engine/programmer, but they're working on adding the script and piecing together the visuals for episode 1 starting today.

While I'll be focused purely on writing episode 2 into the weekend, it'll be a crazy busy 2 weeks for us. But we're not expecting any delay on new content coming in update 0.16

With that said, from all of us at Messy Studios.
We hope your October is a spooky and safe one!